Jeroen de Vries / recent work
I make spatial installations in which I apply or present the
work of other people, mostly photographers and filmmakers.
In my eyes this is a process not unlike that of making a
documentary film about someone or something.
Photographer and filmmaker Johan van der Keuken said
it once like this: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Jeroen de Vries is totally autonomous
and serving at the same time.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;
I listen to what a place has to tell and build my story on
what I hear, often with very minimal means, working in
architectural spaces created by the likes of Hendrik
Berlage and De Bazel, Gerrit Rietveld and Wim Quist,
Bernard Tschumi and Jean Nouvel, Peter Eisenman, and
Benthem/Crouwel.
This presentation features recent work in places like
Schindlers factory in Cracow, a water-tower in Madrid,
an harbour warehouse in Rotterdam, a complex with the
grave of Josip Broz Tito in Belgrade, a baroque 18th
century courtroom in Porto, a 19th century wine-cellar in
Paris, a converted skating hall in Tourcoin, the only
surviving 17th century building in Rotterdam and on the
premises of an modernist landmark tuberculosis hospital.
Most recent is an installation of the work of Robert Capa,
the oldest one is an installation of the work of Eva
Besnyo. Capa and BesnyĂś, two major photographic
innovators, both of Hungarian Jewish descent, lived as
children on the same street in Budapest and remained
friends for life. Eva felt that framing her photos and
hanging them as art on a wall went against the nature of
her work. For her the relationship between the place, the
architecture and her images was crucial.
The work I did with her in 1982 is my point of departure.
That is why I have added it, together with Body and City
(from 1998-2001), a project in collaboration with Johan
van der Keuken and The World of Koen Wessing (from
2000-2001), two other key projects.
The installations shown here are the result of the
collective efforts of curators, builders, graphic designers,
light designers, web designers, producers,
photographers, film-makers etc.
I am responsible for the architecture, sometimes (co)curated them and sometimes took on some of the other
roles as well.
JdV

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009
This is War / Robert Capa
Gerda Taro / retrospective
Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam
Exhibition put together by Cynthia Young /
International Center of Photography / New
York

Capa / the falling soldier
The Spanish Civil War, which broke out on July 19,
1936, was an ultimately successful fascist insurgence led by General Francisco Franco to overthrow the Spanish Republic’s democratically
elected government. The passions that the Spanish Civil War aroused in leftists all over the world
was in part due to a belief that if fascism could be
crushed in Spain, it might collapse everywhere,
thereby averting the cataclysmic world war that
many saw looming on the horizon.
In early August, Robert Capa and his companion
Gerda Taro rushed to Spain to cover the events.
As partisans, they sided with the Republican
cause. By early September, Capa and Taro had arrived in Cerro Muriano near Córdoba, where Republicans were mounting an offensive. There,
twenty-two-year-old Capa would make one of his
most famous photographs, Death of a Loyalist
militiaman, or commonly known as “The Falling
Soldier.” The published image was an immediate
sensation; it was the quintessential unknown Republican soldier of the Spanish Civil War. The picture seemed to symbolize Republican Spain itself,
charging forward to defend itself and being struck
down.
However, by the 1970s, some scholars began
questioning the brilliantly composed image in part
because of the lack of concrete information regarding the soldier and Capa’s reticence to speak
about it. Was it staged? Did it really show a soldier at his actual death? Although there remains
little hard evidence regarding what exactly hap-

The Falling Soldier was used in this graphic book cover for
Death in the Making, Capa’s tribute to the suffering and
sacrifice of the Spanish people while fighting for their freedom.
The photographs are by Capa and Gerda Taro, who died there
while photographing in July 1937. Inexplicably, The Falling
Soldier only appeared on the book jacket and not in the
book’s interior. Over the years many copies of the book have
lost their dust jackets, making it appear that Capa did not even
include his most famous image of the war, and leading some
critics to question the veracity of The Falling Soldier.

2009
The Tito Effect
Charisma as polital legitimacy
Exhibition in the Museum of 25 may in Belgrade
about the period of the second Yugoslavia and
the attitude to Josip Broz as the figure who
personified this period.
The first part of the exhibition is dedicated to the
image of Tito, an obligatory part of the interiors
of public spaces.
Presented in the second section of the exhibition
is the ritual celebration of May 25, beginning
with the months of carrying a baton in relays and
various performances and celebrations across the
country,
Gifts, the material relics of the presentation of
gifts to Tito, make up the third section of the
exhibition.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / The Tito Effect

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / The Tito Effect

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / The Tito Effect

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / The Tito Effect
Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008
Go-No Go / Ad van Denderen
Les Voutes / Paris
A project about he European struggle with
immigration in photographic projections.
It has been presented in different forms on
several European locations.
The exhibition consists of three main elements:
1. A presentation of the photos in digital
projections on large screens.
2. The presentation on monitors of a series of
interviews with immigrants conducted and
filmed by Marjoleine Boonstra.
3. A website with facts, opinions, interviews,
maps and the photos from the exhibition.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / Go-No Go / Ad van Denderen

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007
Hidden Images / captured from
home movies
Centre National de lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Audiovisuel / Luxembourg
Installation combining movies and prints.
A play with time and space.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007 / Hidden Images
Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007 / Hidden Images

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007 / Hidden Images
Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008
In History / Susan Meiselas
International Center of Photography / New York
Meiselas's work evolved in radical and
challenging ways as she grappled with
questions about her relationship to her subjects,
the use and circulation of her images, and the
relationship of images to history and memory.
An installation combining prints, projections,
film, documents, websites, books etc.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / In History

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / In History

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008
In History / Susan Meiselas
International Center of Photography / New York
Kurdistan projection / in collaboration with
Susan Meiselas
Meiselas travelled the world with an exhibition
she put together named Kurdistan, in the
Shadow of History. Instead of resurrecting it as
part of an exhibition on her work, I proposed to
clarify Meiselas motives and methods with an
installation of vitrines in combination with a
multi-screen projection.

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / In History

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007
Port Images / group exhibition
LP2 / Rotterdam
An exhibition on the harbour of Rotterdam in
an old warehouse building.
Multimedia installation with documents,
prints and film projections

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / /Port images

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / /Port images

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / /Port images

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007
Inspiration Rotterdam /
Group exhibition
Rotterdam Historical Museum
Prints and projections in the attic of a
17th century building.
I used the wooden construction as a grid
for the panels.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007 / Inspiration Rotterdam

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007 / Inspiration Rotterdam

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007 / Inspiration Rotterdam

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008
60 Years Magnum / group exhibition
Stedelijk Museum / Post CS Amsterdam
Spatial design for an exhibition created by
Magnum
A 45-metre-long frieze offering a linear account
of MAGNUMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over the last six decades with
texts, key images and original books.
Four interactively controlled projection screens
which enable visitors to (re)discover the work of
all the MAGNUM photographers.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / 60 Years Magnum

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / 60 Years Magnum

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009
New York Perspectives / Group exhibition
Stadsarchief Amsterdam
In the central hall of the Bazels building I created
a steel frame for the presentation of large
images.The goal was to find ou if the entry hall
could be use as an exhibition space together with
the existing gallery.
In this gallery I created walls covering the
columns.

colofon
logoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s etc

over de
fotografen

over de
fotos

introtekst

D C

D C

D C

D C

D C

NY

perspectives

tafel met boeken,
hand out etc

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

2009 / New York Perspectives
Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / New York Perspectives

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / New York Perspectives

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2009 / New York Perspectives

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008
>Play - a photographic record /
Carel van Hees
2008 / Kunsthalle Ludwigshaven
>Play is about what it is like to be young,
anywhere and in all eras. The Rotterdam
photographer Carel van Hees turned his
camera on the youth of Rotterdam.
Digital projections, website, film and a
soundtrack.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008/ >Play - a photographic record / Carel van Hees

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2001
>Play - a photographic record /
Carel van Hees
Las Palmas Rotterdam
Theme: youth culture in Rotterdam
Concept and production: Bas Vroege (Paradox)
Programming audio-visuals: Gerald van der
Kaap
The large size of the space was a challenge.
How could one draw visitors into the space and
into the work of Carel van Hees?
I used the constructive grid of the building, an
old warehouse, in which the supportive columns
are very present. They were to carry the
projectors. 'Look through-screens' as large as
the projectors would tolerate were positioned
diagonally in the space. From a plan the logic
and the simplicity of the set-up was clear; inside
the installation the result was quite
overwhelming. Visitors would bring folding
chairs into the space, finding their own point of
view and creating their own theatre.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2001/ >Play - a photographic record / Carel van Hees

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008
The last days of shismaref / Dana
Lixenberg / Melle van Essen
LP2 / Rotterdam
The photographs of Dana Lixenberg and the
camerawork of Melle van Essen are mounted
together in space, separated by a half transparent screen. Installation includes a soundtrack,
an extensive website, projected animated maps,
a timeline, newsfeeds and a large number of
monitors with news and interviews.

plan of the exhibition

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / The last days of shismaref

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / The last days of shismaref

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2008 / The last days of shismaref

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2

1
5

4

3

5
2

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Steel frame suspended from the ceiling, covered with black fabric
Digital projector
Screen
Benches
Touch screens with database of over a thousand photos

2004
Zonnestraal,
the story of a building
Theme: exhibition regarding a landmark
modernist building of the 1930s
Assembled by: Ton Idsinga
Production: Kunst en Kultuur Noordholland
Zonnestraal is a former sanatorium, built in
1931 by the diamond workers' union, designed
by the architect Jan Duiker.
The largest part of the exhibition was constructed in the open air and positioned so that the
newly restored main building of the sanatorium
was constantly in sight. Thus the building formed the main exhibit. Another part of the exhibition was in a small structure built to house
part of the staff of the sanatorium. I mounted
thin steel tubes between the ceiling and floor,
and between each two tubes hung a large
sheet of paper on which a photo or a drawing
with text was printed. The sheet of paper were
mounted with rubber straps.
The central living area of the little building was
used for an audiovisual presentation in which
we combined historical film material and
soundtracks, photos and drawings with a spoken commentary by Ton Idsinga.

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2004
Zonnestraal,
the story of a building

2004 / Zonnestraal, the story of a building

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2004 / Zonnestraal, the story of a building
Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

2007
Why Mister, Why? / Geert van Kesteren
Schindlers factory / Cracow / Poland
Images of the war in Iraq and texts projected
on very large screens, RSS news-feeds,
soundtrack, and website integrated in the
installation.
Has been presented in the NFM in 2005

Comments by Jeroen de Vries
The collaboration between Johan van der
Keuken and me dates back to 1993, when
I was asked as guest curator to make a retrospective exhibition of his photographic work at
the Amsterdam Historical Museum.
In an effort to address the relationship between
Van der Keuken’s photographic and cinematographic work, I placed a film cabin at the heart
of the exhibition. Outside the cabin I mounted
an installation showing a sequence of the film
Eye Above the Well on a large monitor. Around
the monitor were smaller screens showing the
constituent shots of the sequence.
I share Van der Keuken’s awareness of the need
to challenge the rigid linear time axis of a film,
the rigid position of the viewer vis á vis the
screen and the rigid way photography is often
presented and applied. In Body and City, we
explore the space between photography and
film in the architectural environment.
All the presentations of this project combine to
form a complex and rich installation. I have
chosen not to manipulate Van der Keuken’s
images. Inside their frames they remain untouched, but mounted in space, they have relative
autonomy. There they are incorporated into a
larger whole. The India installation at the
Amsterdam Historical Museum was mounted on
a flat surface and dealt with the linear notion of
time. Dealing with space as we do in this installation, we are dealing with the unforeseen, the
unlinear, with chance.

1. Poster of Body & City on
the front of De Balie.

2. Cross-section of De Balie.

3. Plan ground floor.
4. Plan first floor.

Jeroen de Vries / documentation

1998
Body and City
Johan van der Keuken

in collaboration with Jeroen de Vries
Comments by Jeroen de Vries, continued

In his recent photography, Johan van der
Keuken exposes the same film several times in
the camera, voluntarily abandoning his lifelong
control over the image. Making films, he takes
other risks, lives the life of an adventurer, going
off to war zones and isolated parts of the world.
In his home town Amsterdam, he seems to
move around in circles with his film camera, as
if touching the erogenous zones of a familiar
body. And then in the darkroom or at the editing table, nothing is left to chance. There
Johan van der Keuken regains control over his
life and his work, mastering his material.
In Amsterdam Global Village, unsimultaneous
and unrelated events seem to be occurring at
the same time and as part of the same story.
He creates a Joycian unity of time and space.
A global village.
I did not mount the images one after the other
like in a film, nor did I mount them on flat walls
like at a gallery. Everything can be viewed at
virtually the same time and in the same space,
printed on photographic paper or moving on
dozens of screens as free and transparent elements in the architectural environment. The viewer moves around, ascends and descends
stairs, seems to be in control of time and
space, of body and city as they are presented.
As Johan van der Keuken once stated in another context, the whole constellation is chance
provoked by us.

1. Screen with film projections above the bar of De Balie.
2,3. A large ellipsoid table is mounted between the steel
struts of the Central Body,

film images are projected on it.

4. New York series with film images
Jeroen de Vries / documentation

1998
Body and City
Johan van der Keuken

in collaboration with Jeroen de Vries

Introduction by Johan van der Keuken:
This project grew from my pondering the interaction between photography and film and
where the two can viably coincide. I have been
active for a good two decades in the border
area between them, and have tried out any
number of ways to link two or more photographs outside the ordinary chronological
sequence. There are associations and contrasts
pertaining to content, story, framework, composition, texture, colour, tone, movement and
light.
The expositions/installations are designed by
Jeroen de Vries, who I did an exhibition with
called Johan van der Keuken, photographer
and film-maker at the Amsterdam Historical
Museum in 1993. Jeroen de Vries has been the
man behind a variety of innovative shows. One
large recent project was Here
When/Amsterdam in the Last Year of the War.
The collaboration between the photographer/film-maker and the designer plays a central
role in the entire project.
The idea is to use image, projection, sound
and visual instruments to create individual and
distinct worlds and atmospheres.
JvdK.

The installation in De Balie in Amsterdam

1. Projection on the Central Body.

2. Part of the Sarajevo installation.
3. Nudes, Seeing and Not Seeing.
4. New York

Jeroen de Vries / documentation

1998
Body and City
A nine-metre high 'body' occupies a central position in
Jeroen de Vriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; design.
The installation consists of a nine-metre high transparent
body that images are projected from and onto.
A steel frame is covered with pieces of screening like an
enormous hauberk. The screening is light, you can see
through it and it has a metallic sheen. The images projected onto it appear like quick pictures the viewer can
see through to other pictures, other spaces.
Like satellites, projection screens of various sizes protrude
from the structure. The colossus leaves the floor free, and
in between the legs it is standing on, there is a large
ellipse-shaped table. Film images are also projected onto
the table. Johan van der Keukenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photographic and film
projections.

The installation in Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains.

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

1998
Body and City
The Central Body in Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains.

Jeroen de Vries / documentatie

1998
Body and City

Artforum, January 1999
The core component, “decentralized” to
Le Fresnoy art school in Tourcoing, was intitled
the Central Body, a 27 foot high semi-transparant structure (sculpture? billboard? movie
screen?) on which (and from which) are projected slides and film clips - a sort of audiovisual
enactment of the global village: Sniper fire from
Sarajewo can be heard behind burnt out buildings in New York’s Lower East Side; skaters on
Amsterdam’s frozen canals are just a blink away
from the sex shops in the red light district. Van
der Keuken recalled with satisfaction that in
Amsterdam, were the piece was originally
installed, visitors to the space could not only
roam around the images and sounds, but sip
coffee and read newspapers on the structures’s
tablelike base. On a smaller scale the satellite
installations of “Body and City”were presented
in four separate venues in Paris, combined
photo friezes, wall collages, and photograms
with films and tape loops to evoke, among
other things, street life (or death) in Amsterdam,
La Paz, New York, and Sarajewo.
Like The Central Body, these mini-environments
combining still and moving images were intended -as the title “Body and City” also impliesto draw visitors into and out of the exhibition
space, to transform spectators into active participants, and, ultimately, to recall the violence
and chaos of “what’s happening on the street”.
Miriam Rosen

Why Hang a Photo on a Wall?
Ineke Schwartz
Designer Jeroen de Vries has departed from the twodimensional approach to exhibition before, but never on
the grand scale of the Body and City project now
showing in Amsterdam’s De Balie. Visitors literally wander through the many layers of the work of photographer
and filmmaker Johan van der Keuken.
Amsterdam cultural and political centre De Balie has
been through plenty of renovations over the years. It has
been home to numerous installations, video walls, special sets and ‘environments’. But nothing in the past can
match Body and City, a new project by Johan van der
Keuken and Jeroen de Vries.
The entire building has been reconstructed as a multimedia environment. Visitors are surrounded by images:
enormous black-and-white and colour photographs hang
everywhere and short film loops are constantly being
shown. Extending from ground level to the first floor, a
gigantic installation covered with fine silvery gauze acts
as screen, conduit and reflector for projections. Its tentacles reach out in all directions to provide yet more
screens. Visitors walk through layers of images from New
York, Sarajevo, La Paz, Mysore and Amsterdam.

own presentation. I always try to tell a story in three
dimensions. My father was an architect, a pupil of
Niegeman, so I grew up in a modernist tradition. There
was nothing unusual about investigating possibilities for
the three-dimensional presentation of photography. Think
of the rooms of El Lissitsky. I just kept on pursuing that
investigation after other exhibition makers stopped.’
That’s what makes the collaboration with Van der
Keuken so perfect. ‘Johan doesn’t have rigid preconceptions. As soon as he’s mastered something, he starts
experimenting. More than other creators of images, he’s
fascinated by the tensions between architecture, photography and film, just like me. We also share a desire to
question the linear character of film and the viewer’s
position with regard to the screen.’
This kind of intensive collaboration between artist and
designer is rare. Usually the artist and his ideas are
sacrosanct and the exhibition designer is limited to determining partitions, lighting and colours. De Vries is much
more rigorous. His presentation imposes itself on the
work of the photographer.

This is the biggest project yet for Jeroen de Vries, who
conceived the installation. ‘I’ve been mounting photography exhibitions since 1980, and always as threedimensional installations. I had used the idea of linking
film and photography before, in 1993, for an earlier
project with Johan. But I’d never done it on this scale.’

‘I don’t see myself as an independent visual artist, but
neither am I fully subservient,’ he says. ‘My work swings
between the two extremes. I have a lot to say about what
the artist does. After De Balie invited him, Johan came to
see me with a text explaining his ideas about this project.
I understood what he meant and set to work with materials and models. The themes he put forward are still
there, but a lot more has been added. Together we produced something neither of us had expected.

De Vries prefers to avoid the beaten path. The exhibition
When here..., about the famine in the Netherlands in the
last winter of World War II, which he made for the
Amsterdam Historical Museum several years ago, was
shown in winter and was largely outdoors so that the
visitors, approximately 150 thousand of them, could
experience the cold at first hand. He also projected Cas
Oorthuys’s World War II photos onto the Dam.

‘Johan once said, “Jeroen serves and is also autonomous. He does what he wants to and makes his own
work, but he also serves what heís exhibiting,” says De
Vries. ‘Body & City is about people in big cities of course, but it is also a play of layers. The underlying themes
are skin, surface and transparency. You literally walk
between the layers of images. That works nicely with Van
der Keuken’s multiple exposures.’

This approach comes naturally to De Vries. ‘Why hang
photos on walls, clamped lifelessly behind mats? Often
that’s not the best way to convey the content. Every photographer, every subject and every project requires its

It’s about looking at familiar things anew. Like touching
a lover: itís familiar, but your touch is still exploratory.
Ineke Schwartz